Kitsap County Facilities, Parks and Recreation is in the middle of the process to acquire property and trail corridors from Pope Resources to extend Hansville Greenway trails west to Hood Canal and east to Point No Point.
In 2004, the county obtained a grant from the Washington State Inter-Agency Committee for Outdoor Recreation (IAC) to acquire property and trail corridors south of the current Greenway. Specifically, funding comes from the trails category of the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program. The county requested $640,000, but was awarded $580,000. At the time of the grant application, it estimated that the requested amount would fund the acquisition of approximately 200 acres plus approximately five miles of trail corridors. With the reduced funding level and escalation in property values, the current estimate is more like 100 acres plus trail easements.
The surveyors you may have seen along the southern properties in Shore Woods are delineating property south of Shore Woods, belonging to Pope Resources, which would be appraised to determine how much property the county will be able to acquire with available funding.
Pope Resources has offered to donate 20-foot wide trail easements as part of the match for the State grant. They are willing to consider selling to the county property around Lower Hawk’s Pond (the beaver pond east of Shore Woods), property north from Hawk’s Hole Creek toward Shore Woods, and wider trail easements in some places.
County planners originally anticipated that the grant might allow the purchase of all of the property between Hawk’s Hole Creek and Shore Woods. That now appears unlikely. The surveyors will delineate two 20-acre parcels adjacent to Shore Woods, which would allow Pope to develop them or sell them. Current zoning does not allow them to sell parcels smaller than 20 acres.
Depending on the outcome of the appraisal, there is a remote possibility that one of the parcels could be acquired with funding from the grant. The county currently has a Wooded Rural Incentive Program (under appeal) that would allow up to four houses clustered on each 20 acres if a certain percentage of the 20 acres is left in open space. There are several complicated “open space” options for this “density bonus.”
The planned trails would connect to the existing Greenway via a spur from the current trail that goes to the Upper Hawk’s Pond view platform. It would go along the ridge on the western shore, cross the outlet of the pond, which is the source of Hawk’s Hole Creek, and connect to the logging road which crosses from Hansville Road to Hood Canal Drive.
One trail would go west along the north side of Hawk’s Hole Creek, and cross the creek where an old logging road crosses over a culvert. It would then continue along the southwest side of the creek to the sand pit on Hood Canal Drive, just across from Shore Woods. The sand pit is a potential trailhead site for the future.
Another trail would share or parallel the old logging road east from the creek outlet from the pond and then hug the northern Pope Resources property line east to Hansville Road. Pope Resources will donate a trail easement through their new Chatham development between Hansville Road and Thors Road. Thors Road goes north to the trailhead at the uplands of Point No Point County Park.
Surveying should be completed soon, and then an appraisal will be done. Afterwards, negotiations between Pope Resources and Kitsap County will begin in earnest.
Contact Ken Shawcroft of the Hansville Greenway Association at (360) 638-2495,
kshawcroft@comcast.net. This article was previously published on the Hansville community Web site. To see a map of the proposed extension, go to www.hansville.org and click on “Current Issues.”
